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Epistles
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General SummaryAN important source for the life of Desiderius Erasmus, the famous Dutch humanist (1446–1536), is a biographical sketch by his friend, Beatus Rhenanus. It forms a part of the dedication by Beatus to the emperor Charles V of the collected edition of Erasmus’s writings, which was published at Basel in 1540. Selections from this sketch, together with extracts from the Epistles of Erasmus, are reproduced below. Erasmus had a very extensive correspondence. "I receive daily," he once wrote, "letters from remote parts, from kings, princes, prelates, men of learning, and even from persons of whose existence I was ignorant." The three thousand letters which have been preserved throw much light on the history of the Renaissance period.
Historical SummaryIn 1496, when teaching in Paris, Erasmus wrote as follows to one of his pupils, a young merchant of Lübeck named Christian. The letter furnishes an interesting account of a student’s daily life.
208. To Christian1
Avoid nocturnal lucubrations and studies at unseasonable times. They exhaust the mind and seriously affect the health. The dawn, beloved of the Muses, is the fit time for study. After dinner either play, or walk, or take part in cheerful conversation. Possibly even among these amusements some room may be found for improvement. Eat as much food as is required, not for your pleasure, but for your health. Before supper take a short walk, and after supper do the same. Before going to bed read something exquisite and worth remembering, of which you will be thinking when overcome by sleep, and for which you will ask yourself again when you wake. Let this
maxim of Pliny1 rest always in your mind: All your time is lost which you do not impart to study. Remember that nothing is more fugitive than youth, which, when once it has flown away, never returns. But I am beginning to preach, after promising to be nothing but a guide. Follow, sweetest Christian, the plan I have traced, or any better that you can.
1 Nichols, , vol. i, p. 110.
1 Pliny the Elder (23–79 A.D.), a great Roman scholar.
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Chicago: Nichols, ed., "To Christian," Epistles in Readings in Early European History, ed. Webster, Hutton (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1926), 453. Original Sources, accessed December 4, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=A6I5EZXIEBJGU18.
MLA: . "To Christian." Epistles, edited by Nichols, Vol. i, in Readings in Early European History, edited by Webster, Hutton, Boston, Ginn and Company, 1926, page 453. Original Sources. 4 Dec. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=A6I5EZXIEBJGU18.
Harvard: (ed.), 'To Christian' in Epistles. cited in 1926, Readings in Early European History, ed. , Ginn and Company, Boston, pp.453. Original Sources, retrieved 4 December 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=A6I5EZXIEBJGU18.
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